


but monsters are always hungry, darling

by gointorosedale



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post Neverland reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 06:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gointorosedale/pseuds/gointorosedale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumplestiltskin's mortal flaw, he knows, is that he's always <i>wanting</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but monsters are always hungry, darling

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place at some nebulous point in the future where Rumple and Neal are both back from Neverland. I don't know how, but it's not relevant for the story so I'll just leave it up to the writers...
> 
> Also came out a lot less Rumbelle-y than intended, but Rumple was sort of demanding attention.

> Do we simply stare at what’s horrible and forgive it?  
>  Here is the river, and here is the box, and here are  
>  the monsters we put in the box to test our strength  
>  against. Here is the cake, and here is the fork, and here’s  
>  the desire to put it inside us, and then the question  
>  behind every question: _What happens next?_

 

Rumplestiltskin's mortal flaw, he knows, is that he's always _wanting_. He's always needing, always chasing after one thing or another, trying to grasp things just out of his reach. 

When Rumplestiltskin was little, one of the town elders told a story, one lazy spring afternoon, of a man who was always wanting more. He saw a beautiful woman and he wanted her and through persistence and charm he won her over. He saw the neighbor's children playing in the street and he wanted children and he convinced the woman to have them with him. He saw the farmer next door grow richer and richer and he wanted wealth and he worked himself to the bone in his little butcher's shop to get it. He saw the carpenter build himself a beautiful house and stayed up all hours of the night to build himself one. 

By the end of the story, the man had transformed into nothing but a hungry mouth, devouring everything in its path until finally he consumed the whole village.

At the time Rumplestiltskin had taken it literally and that night he had nightmares about a giant black mouth chasing after him. He'd woken up sweaty and aching, shifting on his pallet, and hadn't been able to shake the image out of his head all day.

Now, Rumplestiltskin thinks it a more figurative story. He imagines the man would drive everyone away. He imagines the wife would come into the man's shop, tired eyes, _please will you come to bed?_ while the man kept working. He imagines the children, tucked neatly into their beds, _where is papa?_ and _won't he read us a story?_ and eventually the wife, packing her things, herding her children out the door. The man with his wealth, his empty house with its empty beds. The man slowly fading away.

Rumplestiltskin regrets the fact that he never took the story as the warning it was meant to be, but he can't seem to help himself.

He's always wanting things, everything is always just out of reach. So close, but not quite. It seems simple, to him. He wants a family, together and happy, not struggling to live and not hated by everyone else. It doesn't seem like all that much but life seems determined, time and time again, to teach him that he cannot have everything he wants.

For centuries, all Rumplestiltskin wanted was to find his son, to gather him close and chant out the words _I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry_ like a mantra and tell him how loved he is, how important. It hurt to think of that boy all on his own in some strange place, disoriented and scared, thinking his father didn't love him enough to follow. It was a sharp kind of ache that never quite dulled and for centuries the only thing he could think of is making it better. All he wanted was his son, close, safe, loved.

When he met Belle, it was too easy to forget that. Suddenly, he wanted more. He wanted Baelfire close, yes, wanted to pull him into his side and bury his face in the boy's hair, but he wanted Belle on his other side. He wanted to be able to look up from his spinning wheel and see them curled up in front of the fire or maybe even see Belle teaching Bae to read, and once he had those thoughts there was no getting rid of it. Suddenly, Rumplestiltskin wanted _everything._

He'd wanted everything before, as a young man. Wanted his wife's adoring eyes on him, wanted to prove to the town that he was worth something. Wanted, even, to prove to his runaway father that he was better than his father ever could be, that he could fight. That he was brave. And then he'd wanted his son, wanted a little boy he could bounce on his knee on cold winter nights, carry around on his shoulders to the market. And he'd wanted comfort for his little family, for them to be able to sleep on real beds and have three meals a day.

Rumplestiltskin had wanted everything before, and gotten nothing but power and fear. Two things that in the grand scheme of things, meant nothing to him.

So when Rumplestiltskin found himself wanting his little maid and his son and perhaps a nice cottage to settle down in and some sheep _and_ – 

Well, he knew it was going to turn out badly and he ended it before it could. It wasn't the clean break he was hoping for, exactly, and every once in a while when he was spinning his eyes would stray to the chipped cup on its pedestal and his throat would tighten around something like tears, but the sadness and guilt was better than constantly wanting more.

Unfortunately, without noticing, suddenly Rumplestiltskin found himself _wanting_ again. In Storybrooke, with Belle back at his side, it was hard not to think of having Bae and Belle both. It was so close, then, this life where he could hold both their hands in his and some nights he couldn't sleep for wanting, the near physical ache of it. Those nights, Belle crowded close in bed, laying her head on his chest, and kindly didn't mention the fact that she wasn't enough.

He ate up her touches, then. He'd been without for so long and so he found himself needing, once more. Wanting her soft hands on the nape of his neck, the brush of fingers along his elbow as she walked past him, a gesture so intimate it made his heart clench up. He had Belle and it suddenly seemed so easy to simply find Baelfire and have them both, to have their faces be the last thing he saw at night.

Now, finally, he has found his son and looking at his beautiful perfect boy, it seems entirely impossible. He's chased him across three worlds now and they're finally all here, all three of them, in the great cavernous house that doesn't quite seem to fill up with their presence the way he'd hoped. They are standing in the kitchen and every one of them looks out of place.

Baelfire is staring at him and the fact that Rumplestiltskin can't quite read his expression is a punch to the gut. There used to be a time he knew everything about that boy, could read the thought behind every quirk of his brow and twitch of his lips. Now, three hundred years later, it's like looking at a stranger and Rumplestiltskin feels like his legs will give out entirely.

Belle, too, looks different. More tired, with lines around her eyes that he doesn't remember. Her eyes are bright like endless sea skies still, but there's a dullness there borne of exhaustion and stress, Tired-eyed, but rimmed with hope, she looks between the two of them and Rumplestiltskin is suddenly immensely grateful for her sheer hope. 

Rumplestiltskin fumbles for something to say. They'd walked to the house in silence, a non-verbal agreement to have their reunion in private, but now the silence has been hanging oppressively for so long that none of them seem to know what to say. _I'm sorry_ doesn't seem adequate but even after all these years, there's nothing else he can think of. 

And Rumplestiltskin wants so, so badly to have this, to have the three of them together. To somehow find the magic words that convey the sheer love he has for these people, words that will make their faces light up in wonder and joy and love. He wants, more than anything, for this awkward tension to break and for Belle to smile and his son to forgive him. For the three of them to live here, together, in this fortress of a house. Rumplestiltskin wants, finally, after so long, to have his family. 

He knows it's unwise, knows that dreaming big never got anyone anything but a lot of disappointment, but it's so easy to be swept along in hopeful anticipation when he has the two of them in reach.

So Rumplestiltskin leans on his cane, hands folded atop the handle, and feels something like desperation crawl up his throat as he wills himself to find the right words. He's a wordsmith at heart, has made a trade out of words, learned to bend them to his purposes and use them to trick people and yet somehow now his words fail him.

 _I missed you two_ , he thinks. _The world felt like an abandoned snow globe without you. Some mornings I woke up and I loved you so much I felt like dying and then I dragged myself out of bed anyway because I needed to find you._

 _I need you_ , Rumplestiltskin wants to say but doesn't because it seems so selfish, to make it about what he needs. _I'm sorry_ , he thinks but doesn't say because he's sorry for too many things to convey in seven letters. _I missed you_ , he thinks. Useless words.

“I love you,” he says, to both of them.

They are not magic words. Baelfire's expression remains stony and Belle keeps looking between them, caught somewhere between blind hope and crushing desparation, but there's something in Bae's eyes. It's not so much a softness as it is a heartbreak, but it gives Rumplestiltskin some measure of hope.

He feels light and shaky but through sheer force of wanting, centuries of dreaming about the three of them together, he lifts two weathered, trembling hands towards them, trying to both prove himself harmless and plead for mercy.

Bae continues to stare at him and Belle looks frozen and Rumplestiltskin can almost feel his heart wither, but then one of them makes a desperate sound and suddenly both of them are reaching and taking hold of his hands.

Rumplestiltskin feels breathless as he lifts both their hands to his lips and kisses their knuckles, heart going rabbit-fast. Baelfire still looks stoic and Belle looks worried and it's not an ending to their story by any means, but after three hundred years of wanting he's holding onto the two people he loves more than anything and it's certainly a start.


End file.
